


Magically Appearing Six-Year-Old: Jo

by rsadelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Magically Appearing Child, Magically Appearing Six-Year-Old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-01
Updated: 2008-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 19:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One minute Dean's cleaning weapons and Sam's reading and the next minute there's a girl on their couch. Not the kind of girl Dean would like to have on their couch, but a kid with blonde curls and pink Converse on her feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magically Appearing Six-Year-Old: Jo

One minute Dean's cleaning weapons and Sam's reading and the next minute there's a girl on their couch. Not the kind of girl Dean would like to have on their couch, but a kid with blonde curls and pink Converse on her feet.

Dean's body moves on autopilot and he has a gun pointed at her the moment he notices her. She goes rabbit still and that's when Sam looks up at her too.

"You're hunters," she says, and her voice shakes. "My daddy's a hunter too."

"Who are you?" Sam asks.

She's still warily watching Dean's gun, but she answers the question. "Joanna Beth Harvelle. Jo."

Sam and Dean exchange a look. Yeah, right.

"I'm Sam," Sam tells her. "That's Dean. Christo."

She looks at him weirdly, and Dean just shakes his head.

"What?" Sam says. "I had to try."

"You suck with kids." Dean puts the gun down and goes to crouch in front of Jo. "What year is it?"

She frowns at him. "1993," she says like he's stupid or something.

There's a beeping to his right, and he looks up to see Sam holding the EMF meter on her. Dean's not surprised when nothing happens. This is too weird for that. Jo shrinks back from it anyway.

"I want to go home," she says, and her lip trembles a little.

Dean pats her knee. "Sam's going to get you a glass of water, and I'm going to be right over there," he points to the other side of the room, "making a phone call."

Sam puts the EMF meter down and does as Dean's said while Dean scrolls down his phone to the entry for Jo. He gets her voice mail so he hangs up and calls the Roadhouse.

"Have you talked to Jo recently?" he asks Ellen.

"Jo? Yeah, she's here."

Okay, that wasn't what he expected. "She's there? Can I talk to her?"

"Yeah, sure." Ellen hands the phone over to Jo.

"Dean?"

"Jo." Dean looks at the girl on the couch. "Has anything strange happened to you recently?"

"Not any stranger than usual. Why?"

The Jo on their couch is easily drinking the water Sam brought her, which is kind of a relief. Dean saw Sam adding holy water to it, so at least she's nothing that reacts to holy water.

"Look," Dean says, "you just have to see this. We're coming to you. We're a day out." He looks at the girl and tries to remember what it was like traveling when he was six, or when Sammy was six. "Maybe two. Just stay there. Don't go anywhere."

"Dean, what's going on?"

"Just promise me," Dean says. "Promise me you'll stay there until we get there."

"Okay," Jo sounds bewildered, but at least she gets that it's important. "I won't go anywhere."

The Jo on their couch is kind of shrinking back from Sam, and, man, does he really suck with kids.

"Okay, good. We'll see you in a couple of days." Dean hangs up and goes back to take over. "Sam, pack up. We're leaving."

It takes them almost two full days. Dean had forgotten just how much you have to stop when you have a little kid in the back seat. Potty breaks and breaks to stretch because she fusses a little when they've been driving for too long and stops at grocery stores for peanut butter and juice boxes. She doesn't like Sam much, but she'll let Dean take her hand so they don't get separated.

She perks up on the approach to the Roadhouse. "You're taking me home!"

Dean glances at her in the rearview mirror. "Yeah."

It's late afternoon when they get there, late enough for there to be a few people in the place, not so late that it's packed.

Ellen blinks at them when they come in, and then Jo is yelling, "Mommy!" and running towards her and Ellen comes around the bar and bends down to scoop her up.

"Jo, baby," she says, pressing the girl into her arms.

"Mommy, I was reading and then I was in a hotel room with them and they're hunters and I missed you so much." Jo started crying the moment Ellen picked her up, so most of that comes out jumbled.

And then the grown-up Jo comes out from the back room and sees her mother clutching a kid who looks familiar, and she remembers those shoes.

"What the hell?"

Ellen turns to look at her, and she looks happier to have this girl in her arms than she ever does to see Jo.

"How can they both be here?" she asks.

Sam shrugs. "We don't know. I've been doing research, but I haven't found anything."

"We were hoping Jo might know," Dean says.

"That's me?" Jo asks. She can see it now, the same nose she sees in the mirror every morning, even if her cheeks aren't as round anymore.

"We think so," Sam says. "She didn't react to holy water, and she didn't set off the EMF meter." He hesitates, and then says, "She thought it was 1993."

Jo honestly can't think of anything that might have made this happen, but she steps behind the bar and tells them everything that happened on her last job while her mom takes this new version of her back to the kitchen to get her something to eat.


End file.
